The World Development Indicators database has been updated. This is a regular quarterly update to over 800 indicators and includes both new indicators and updates to existing indicators.

This release features new external debt data from the International Debt Statistics database, and revised data for national accounts, PPP series, balance of payments, FDI inflows, remittances, and monetary indicators. Updates have also been made for government finance indicators, malnutrition series, education aggregates, Enterprise Surveys, commercial banks, refugees, high-technology exports, and other trade-related indicators. IDA and IBRD group data have been adjusted to reflect Syrian Arab Republic's reclassification as an IDA only country.

Each year on July 1, the analytical classification of the world's economies based on estimates of gross national income (GNI) per capita for the previous year is revised. As of 1 July 2016, low-income economies are defined as those with a GNI per capita, calculated using the World Bank Atlas method, of $1,025 or less in 2015; lower middle-income economies are those with a GNI per capita between $1,026 and $4,035; upper middle-income economies are those with a GNI per capita between $4,036 and $12,475; high-income economies are those with a GNI per capita of $12,476 or more. The updated GNI per capita estimates are also used as input to the World Bank's operational guidelines that determines lending eligibility.

Changes in classification

The country and lending groups page provides a complete list of economies classified by income, region, and lending status. The classification tables include all World Bank members, plus all other economies with populations of more than 30,000. Please note, regions include economies at all income levels. The term country, used interchangeably with economy, does not imply political independence but refers to any territory for which authorities report separate social or economic statistics. Click here for information about how the World Bank classifies countries. The updated World Development Indicators database, GNI per capita data, and income-level aggregations will be available at data.worldbank.org from Tuesday July 5th.

From July 2016, an adjustment will be made to the population estimates published in World Development Indicators of five countries affected by the refugee situation in the Middle East and North Africa region: Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. Previously, for these countries for 2011 onwards, refugees have been included in the population estimates of the country of origin. Going forward, population estimates will include refugees in the country in which they currently reside (also referred to as their country of asylum), rather than their country of origin. This means that Syrian refugees residing outside of Syria will no longer be counted in the Syrian population estimate.

This change improves the consistency between the population estimates of these countries and those of countries in other regions, where estimates are based on a "de facto" definition – counting all residents, regardless of their legal status or citizenship. While population estimates are used for a wide variety of purposes, the change also improves the consistency between them and their use in estimating per capita incomes; the System of National Accounts does not distinguish between refugees and other groups of people for the purpose of determining residence, and this is the prevailing practice adopted by national statistical agencies.

The 2016 edition of International Debt Statistics is published today, and provides comprehensive data on the debt of low and middle-income countries, and quarterly external and public sector debt statistics for high income economies. It shows that:

Each year on July 1, the World Bank revises analytical classification of the world's economies based on estimates of gross national income (GNI) per capita for the previous year. The updated GNI per capita estimates are also used as input to the World Bank's operational classification of economies that determines lending eligibility.

The 2015 edition of World Development Indicators (WDI) has just been released. WDI 2015 provides high-quality cross-country comparable statistics about development and people's lives around the globe. Read the blog post here. The WDI suite of products can be accessed from data.worldbank.org/wdi, and include:

The Little Data Book 2015, a pocket edition of the WDI, which is also available from OKR and the PDF file can be accessed by clicking here.

An update to the WDI database including notes and metadata explaining the relevance of the indicators for development, their source, and their methodology. Visit databank.worldbank.org or click here to get direct access to the database.

Online tables: 87 tables presenting country and aggregate data organized into six main topics (World View, People, Environment, Economy, States and Markets, and Global Links) providing both data and comprehensive "About the Data" explanations. These tables are automatically updated quarterly and can be accessed and downloaded from http://wdi.worldbank.org/tables.

Interactive Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Dashboards: These dashboards provide MDG progress status for regions, income classifications, and other groups. http://data.worldbank.org/mdgs.

The WDI "DataFinder" application available in English, Spanish, French and Chinese, in tablet and mobile phone editions for both Android and iOS. The current version has been updated with new data, and a new version will be available at the end of April.

The 2015 edition of International Debt Statistics (IDS) has just been released. IDS 2015 draws from comprehensive databases of debt statistics collected from 124 low- and middle-income countries, as well as quarterly external and public sector debt from high-income countries.

These databases continue to be a vital input for debt managers and researchers around the world working to improve the management of global capital flows. Making these resources available to everyone is an important element of the World Bank Group's commitment to open data. Users can easily navigate these online resources to view, graph, and download the debt statistics of countries worldwide.

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This blog is a forum for discussing development data issues and open access to data. Open access to data is a key part of the World Bank's commitment to sharing our knowledge to improve people's lives.

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